Can you tell me how you're coming up with $2,500 a month? By my calculations, the interest rate on my loans would have to be 22.5% for the monthly payment to be that high. I was planning to borrow my money from the federal government and banks, not from loan sharks.

Can you tell me how you're coming up with $2,500 a month? By my calculations, the interest rate on my loans would have to be 22.5% for the monthly payment to be that high. I was planning to borrow my money from the federal government and banks, not from loan sharks.

Can you tell me how you're coming up with $2,500 a month? By my calculations, the interest rate on my loans would have to be 22.5% for the monthly payment to be that high. I was planning to borrow my money from the federal government and banks, not from loan sharks.

Tuition at Cornell next year is $51K. If tuition keeps rising at its current rate of 5% per year, then total tuition for the three years will be $160K. So, right off the bat, that's 40K in tuition expenses that the scholarship won't cover. If you add in health insurance, books, and COL expenses, that's an extra 50K - 60K for three years, for a total of $90K - $100K. I might have just enough saved to cover that, which is why I can get out debt-free.

At CLS, I would use my savings to offset the size of the loan. The total cost of attendance at CLS is similar to Cornell. CLS's COL is higher but its tuition is lower. Plus, CLS will, unlike Cornell, pay you to do PI work over the summer, which I plan to take advantage of during my 1L summer. Overall, let's call it a wash.

So, at the end of the day, the difference in cost between Cornell and CLS is the $120K that Cornell is offering me. That is a lot of money, but it's not $220K.

Can you tell me how you're coming up with $2,500 a month? By my calculations, the interest rate on my loans would have to be 22.5% for the monthly payment to be that high. I was planning to borrow my money from the federal government and banks, not from loan sharks.

Tuition at Cornell next year is $51K. If tuition keeps rising at its current rate of 5% per year, then total tuition for the three years will be $160K. So, right off the bat, that's 40K in tuition expenses that the scholarship won't cover. If you add in health insurance, books, and COL expenses, that's an extra 50K - 60K for three years, for a total of $90K - $100K. I might have just enough saved to cover that, which is why I can get out debt-free.

At CLS, I would use my savings to offset the size of the loan. The total cost of attendance at CLS is similar to Cornell. CLS's COL is higher but its tuition is lower. Plus, CLS will, unlike Cornell, pay you to do PI work over the summer, which I plan to take advantage of during my 1L summer. Overall, let's call it a wash.

So, at the end of the day, the difference in cost between Cornell and CLS is the $120K that Cornell is offering me. That is a lot of money, but it's not $220K.

So if you had $100k debt, that comes out to $1240/month for 10 years or $985/month for 15 years.

Can you tell me how you're coming up with $2,500 a month? By my calculations, the interest rate on my loans would have to be 22.5% for the monthly payment to be that high. I was planning to borrow my money from the federal government and banks, not from loan sharks.

Tuition at Cornell next year is $51K. If tuition keeps rising at its current rate of 5% per year, then total tuition for the three years will be $160K. So, right off the bat, that's 40K in tuition expenses that the scholarship won't cover. If you add in health insurance, books, and COL expenses, that's an extra 50K - 60K for three years, for a total of $90K - $100K. I might have just enough saved to cover that, which is why I can get out debt-free.

At CLS, I would use my savings to offset the size of the loan. The total cost of attendance at CLS is similar to Cornell. CLS's COL is higher but its tuition is lower. Plus, CLS will, unlike Cornell, pay you to do PI work over the summer, which I plan to take advantage of during my 1L summer. Overall, let's call it a wash.

So, at the end of the day, the difference in cost between Cornell and CLS is the $120K that Cornell is offering me. That is a lot of money, but it's not $220K.

I wasn't implying that you would have 200k of loans. I was just trying to figure out how NY88 came up with the $2,500 monthly payment figure.

IMO, the financial difference is too great to justify paying sticker at Columbia. If this was between Cornell and Harvard, I'd tell you to go to Harvard. However, Cornell is a great school that would potentially help you achieve your career aspirations. No need to saddle yourself with an extra 120k in debt (which is really going to turn into 140k+ or something really insane when you figure in the interest on student loans).

I think people tend to forget how much 120K is when they are talking about the insane price of law school. 120K is a 20% down-payment on a $600,000 loan for a home. There are people who work their entire lives not to have so much money for a down payment. Then, compound that with the lower interest over the life of the loan and your talking about a good deal more money. (Obviously HAVING 120k versus simply not being in debt 120k is different, but the magnitude of the # is my point.)

Or, if your a gear head like me 120K is a Porsche 911 turbo. =)

To the OP, nobody can make this decision for you. Your aspirations and goals are different than others. However, if you are looking at it from a financial standpoint, the resounding answer would be CORNELL. Not even close.

djgoldbe wrote:I think people tend to forget how much 120K is when they are talking about the insane price of law school. 120K is a 20% down-payment on a $600,000 loan for a home. There are people who work their entire lives not to have so much money for a down payment. Then, compound that with the lower interest over the life of the loan and your talking about a good deal more money. (Obviously HAVING 120k versus simply not being in debt 120k is different, but the magnitude of the # is my point.)

Or, if your a gear head like me 120K is a Porsche 911 turbo. =)

To the OP, nobody can make this decision for you. Your aspirations and goals are different than others. However, if you are looking at it from a financial standpoint, the resounding answer would be CORNELL. Not even close.

If I were looking at this from a purely financial standpoint, I would not be going to law school at all. I have a relatively secure job with a six-figure salary. Irrespective of whether I go to CLS or Cornell or someplace else, I am likely going to be worse off financially.

I am going to law school because I am bored in my current field and because I love the study of law and policy. The problem for me is that I probably won't be happy settling for a big firm job that entails hours of transactional work. If my goal was simply to land a transactional job at a big firm in NYC, then I would almost certainly choose Cornell + scholarship over Columbia. But, as I noted earlier in this thread, I have aspirations towards a career in appellate lit or in federal government PI. For that path, I think there's little question that CLS is better than Cornell.

How much better is CLS for what I am interested in? Is the advantage of CLS--for appellate lit and elite PI--worth $120k? That's the question I'm grappling with. In a couple of posts in this thread and in some PMs I've received, the CLS advocates have done a decent job that of pointing out the significant differences between CLS and Cornell. When I started this thread, I was hoping that some of the Cornell supporters would try to show that Cornell also offers excellent opportunities for someone interested in appellate litigation or elite PI. Instead, I've gotten to read a lot of exclamation points and phrases in all caps.

Last edited by Dignan on Sun Mar 14, 2010 10:40 pm, edited 2 times in total.

By that logic, they'd have to lock all of TLS... thus putting themselves out of business.

OMG....I have a dilemma between UVA for FREE or Columbia at sticker....which school should i go to?

After looking at Jules Winnfield, he seems almost exactly like ATOIsp07, posting unsupported opinions then moving on to people bashing when he's called out.

Turns out, Jules Winnfield was created March 3, 2010; The day ATOIsp07 stopped posting was March 3, 2010 after being banned. ATOIsp07 claimed, obviously falsely, to have been admitted to Columbia after getting into a flaming war. Seems like he's doing the same thing under his new account, posting in the same way and in the same threads.

Dignan wrote:How much better is CLS for what I am interested in? Is the advantage of CLS--for appellate lit and elite PI--worth $120k?

This is a tough question to answer. The answer I would give you (again, if you can't tell by now, I'm biased, so take this as one perspective) is that Columbia is a lot better than Cornell. Whether it's worth the cost is for you to decide, but I am confident saying CLS places a lot better into the areas you're interested in compared to Cornell.

To qualify that, however, I'd say Columbia is noticeably worse than Harvard or Yale (I'm a little surprised you haven't been accepted to the former with your numbers), and at any school prestigious PI and appellate lit is a crapshoot, and requires you to be near the top of your class (even at H and Y). I'm sure you know this, but just wanted to make sure it was in your mind.

I don't have any rigorous statistics, but to put some color around it, you might want to take a look at these links (for all, adjust for class size):

-Kellogg Huber - top appellate boutique (--LinkRemoved--) has a couple of Columbia associates

-Skadden Fellows (probably the most prestigious PI fellowship you can win) by law school for the last two decades. Columbia places 1-3 typically, versus 0 most years and 1 every now and then for Cornell.

It's hard to draw too much from this because the sample size is so small for each data point. That said, you simply don't see Cornell grads in appellate lit and PI for the most part. Whether this is due to self-selection or something else, we can argue about until our faces turn blue.

Edit: Columbia also has a couple of "exclusive" fellowships with PI organizations. For example:

djgoldbe wrote:I think people tend to forget how much 120K is when they are talking about the insane price of law school. 120K is a 20% down-payment on a $600,000 loan for a home. There are people who work their entire lives not to have so much money for a down payment. Then, compound that with the lower interest over the life of the loan and your talking about a good deal more money. (Obviously HAVING 120k versus simply not being in debt 120k is different, but the magnitude of the # is my point.)

Or, if your a gear head like me 120K is a Porsche 911 turbo. =)

To the OP, nobody can make this decision for you. Your aspirations and goals are different than others. However, if you are looking at it from a financial standpoint, the resounding answer would be CORNELL. Not even close.

If I were looking at this from a purely financial standpoint, I would not be going to law school at all. I have a relatively secure job with a six-figure salary. Irrespective of whether I go to CLS or Cornell or someplace else, I am likely going to be worse off financially.

I am going to law school because I am bored in my current field and because I love the study of law and policy. The problem for me is that I probably won't be happy settling for a big firm job that entails hours of transactional work. If my goal was simply to land a transactional job at a big firm in NYC, then I would almost certainly choose Cornell + scholarship over Columbia. But, as I noted earlier in this thread, I have aspirations towards a career in appellate lit or in federal government PI. For that path, I think there's little question that CLS is better than Cornell.

How much better is CLS for what I am interested in? Is the advantage of CLS--for appellate lit and elite PI--worth $120k? That's the question I'm grappling with. In a couple of posts in this thread and in some PMs I've received, the CLS advocates have done a decent job that of pointing out the significant differences between CLS and Cornell. When I started this thread, I was hoping that some of the Cornell supporters would try to show that Cornell also offers excellent opportunities for someone interested in appellate litigation or elite PI. Instead, I've gotten to read a lot exclamation points and phrases in all caps.

Well, not to demean your aspirations, but pretty much everyone on TLS (or who go for top law schools for that matter) is interested in appellate litigation or elite PI. Thus, they are insanely competitive. So, your going to have to be top ~10% of your class. As most will tell you - going to law school with the expectation of such ranking is highly dubious. So, in the sense that perhaps you might ONLY have to be top 10% at CLS versus top 6-7% at cornell, you are right CLS would be better for those goals. (These are approximations. But considering CLS website says of the 2008 class 2% went to government and 3% PI, and only a fraction of those would probably be the 'elite' level jobs you speak of, lets say even half of them - thats still less than 3% overall).

If you are comfortable taking on 120K extra debt on the chance that you might get such a ranking and such a job, then go for it. But I wouldn't call us that say it's unwise out of line for saying so. Now, if we were talking Harvard or Yale I would agree that you have a different level of prospects when it comes to your aspirations, but cornell vs columbia seems to be a different deal. Again, as I said before (and many others) its your personal calculations that matter. I agree columbia is going to give you a better shot at what your looking for, but based off what I have heard and seen it isn't enough to justify the financial risk. You may not enjoy your job right now, but you need to consider the overwhelmingly real possibility that you will graduate from CLS with 120K debt and without the type of elite job your looking for. (Or, that you might hate the job you think you'll love.)

imchuckbass58: Thank you for providing all that information. That's very informative. And, yes, Harvard or Yale (especially Yale) would be better for my goals. But I'm on hold at the former (a lot of us with less than a 3.85 GPA are struggling to get in this year) and I have probably a 10% shot at the latter. Right now, I'm proceeding under the assumption that I'm not getting into either.

djgoldbe: You're right, of course. I realize that my dream career path is extremely competitive, and that there's a good chance that I will fail. I'm definitely taking a gamble here. To have a shot at my dream career, you estimate that I'd probably have to be top 10% at CLS versus top 6-7% at Cornell. If I can be convinced that the difference is that small, I probably will go to Cornell. Everything I've read, however, suggests the difference is more like top 10% at CLS versus top 2-3% at Cornell. On what do you base the 6-7% estimate for Cornell?

Dignan wrote:imchuckbass58: Thank you for providing all that information. That's very informative. And, yes, Harvard or Yale (especially Yale) would be better for my goals. But I'm on hold at the former (a lot of us with less than a 3.85 GPA are struggling to get in this year) and I have probably a 10% shot at the latter. Right now, I'm proceeding under the assumption that I'm not getting into either.

djgoldbe: You're right, of course. I realize that my dream career path is extremely competitive, and that there's a good chance that I will fail. I'm definitely taking a gamble here. To have a shot at my dream career, you estimate that I'd probably have to be top 10% at CLS versus top 6-7% at Cornell. If I can be convinced that the difference is that small, I probably will go to Cornell. Everything I've read, however, suggests the difference is more like top 10% at CLS versus top 2-3% at Cornell. On what do you base the 6-7% estimate for Cornell?

As someone else said before, Cornell grads go overwhelmingly to biglaw. I am inclined to believe this is largely self-selection. I have no hard fact to support this other than the fact that other, lower ranked schools (ie Georgetown, Texas, UCLA, Vandy) all place significantly more grads into such positions (Govt, PI, etc). For instance, in the links posted above for prominent appellate practices, you find as many (if not more) people from Texas and Georgetown than you do from Columbia. That being said, it may be that Texas/Georgetown might have more connections in these areas. However, I am inclined to think that Cornell as an institution is not the reason for the lack of such placement, but you would do well to ask a Cornell student about that. This is an answer I would like to know as well.

However, with your stats it would seem that $ to georgetown, duke, or full rides to UT/Vandy would give you the best of both financial security and prospects. However, if you are restricted to CLS vs Cornell, the questions I posed above seem most relevant.